Swaying, Rocking
by ShiverIntheLight
Summary: If one looked at Ezio Auditore da Firenze in this moment he or she would see a cruel scarred mouth with an expression of impassiveness. That person may see an older adolescent with calculating purpose and truth as he looked over the city, keeping thoughts to himself.


Swaying, Rocking

**Disclaimer: I do not own Ezio or the city of Florence. Only Ubisoft owns Ezio and the idea of Assassin's Creed.**

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The breeze rustled his hood as he gazed about Florence with an almost bored expression on his face. He sat upon an overhang, far from the views of guards or commonplace people, but that is how he liked it best. Ever since that dreadful day...

If one looked at Ezio Auditore da Firenze in this moment he or she would see a cruel scarred mouth with an expression of impassiveness. That person may see a young man with calculating purpose and truth as he looked over the city, keeping thoughts to himself.

Ezio knew he was a man that no one would understand, and that realization pushed his heart back behind a massive barrier that prevented him from truly feeling unless it was broken. When he walked around the city people would part the way for him, as if they sensed he was disapproving of being encircled by slow moving people.

The master assassin could never forget the day, ten decades ago, when his father and brothers hung from the gibbet, the roars of the crowd leaking into his ears as if they were jeering at him. Ezio could remember how his blood boiled for revenge and how an ocean of blood stained his hands when he became an assassin.

His impassive expression could only linger for so long and as he watched a pigeon fly above alone he could only retreat into a reverie to see his father, Federico, and Petruccio again, full of life, full of being. Flesh and bone, instead of cased corpses thrown in a muddy covered ditch underground. Ezio's fist clenched and yet his face still didn't betray signs of weakening in that cold mask.

Their deaths still weighed heavily on him now, a decade later, as he crouched on the overhang; the memories refused to let him forget all that he remembered. Suddenly his lips bared the teeth hiding behind in a snarl and Ezio ran back onto the roof of the building and made his way back to the ground. Once his feet hit the solid surface he began to run, enhanced frantic breaths making his glaring brown eyes mist over and his heart race.

People, houses, and trees sped by him as he dashed to a destination that had engraved itself into his soul. The peasants leapt out of his way and watched his retreating figure race away with bemused expressions. Ezio didn't care who yelled at him to watch where he was going or who he knocked over, he just closed his eyes and flew.

After seeing the side gate of Florence Ezio only hurried harder down the street, feeling a cleaving desperation clawing at him to move. The guards at the gate flinched as they saw Ezio's blur of a figure bounding past their vision.

The assassin continued on without a moments hesitation as the quiet of nature muted the sounds from the city behind him. His fingernails bit into the heel of his hand and he barely reacted to the prick as a sharp chipped nail cut into his palm. Ezio only focused on running, and getting to the spot he had kept in his heart.

Once the gray epitaph raced up to meet him in his vision it was only then that he slowed down, chest heaving with the exertion and lack of oxygen. Ezio breathed in thrice deeply before continuing to walk, feeling that familiar heaviness bestow itself onto his shoulders and body, stooping his posture.

The mound beneath the epitaph was the most important thing to him, as Mario Auditore helped with the findings of Ezio's father and two brothers, burying them properly outside of the city.

_I couldn't even stop the fates of them... _Ezio thought as he stood by the mound, as if keeping a mournful vigil. He remembered their broken, blank faces as they hung, feet swaying in the breeze of the late summer wind. Ezio clutched his head and let it hang, squeezing tightly so as not to lose control over his mask. _ No one was able to succeed in helping me reduce the past's pain...no one..._

_ Father...Federico...Petruccio._

The spring late afternoon clouds still raced by in the sky, unsympathetic and ignorant about Ezio's struggle down on the ground. The assassin knew the enmity in him for the Templar Order and Rodrigo Borgia still existed, long after the organization was destroyed and the Grand Master was killed. However he also held enmity for himself...for not thinking of a plan to save his father and brothers before their lives were taken from them.

The scream that threatened to rise in his throat only further gave him the implication that he was on the verge. His pupils began to dilate, his breathing began to quicken, his heart began to hurt. The mound below only signified death and the remains of afterward. Everything around him still lived life, while Ezio lived in a time warp, unable to escape.

As a man he quickly learned that sadness and the feelings proceeding it only induced weakness and cowardice. Ezio willingly made his heart into a solid wall of impenetrable stone that took on every assault from every emotion over the ten long tumultuous years. However now...in this moment when peace finally reigned in the land, that layer encasing his heart was at the point of being breached. It was only a matter of time and Ezio knew it, no mater how strongly he pushed the crackings in his heart away from his conscience.

His shoulders betrayed him first, the quivering startled him and he desperately tried to force them to become rigid again. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the sun begin to set, the warm rays of red and orange settling on his face. The brief chill that indicated that night was near soon entered the air. Ezio refused to move.

His hands released his head and hung back down limply at his sides, feeling numbness threaten to overtake him. The master assassin closed his eyes and felt ready to collapse onto his knees from the emotion to get closer to his dead family members. The pain of holding everything back ripped into Ezio now; he was stretched as taut as a rubber band, the hot friction sizzling in his blood. Memories surged into him, taking their advantage over his crippling stoicism to ravage his mind, to threaten him to let loose everything and all into the air.

That memory returned again, of his father and brothers standing on the gibbet, their expressions struggling to stay calm above the rising storm in their hearts and blood; their imminent death loomed close by, baring its blood-red teeth in a mockery of life.

As soon as Ezio watched his family members' ropes be jerked upward to end their lives he heard a mental crack as red blossomed all over his vision. A sizzle of heat began in him and only rose as his suffering from the memory lingered.

That's when he felt the presence of someone and before he could whirl his laggard body around he felt arms wrap around his back to enclose around his front, binding him. Ezio's mouth parted in surprise before he felt her head rest against the back of his shoulder. Then he realized his body was swaying gently, but not by his own accord, but by the woman's accord from behind him.

The sensation unlocked many emotions in him and he closed his eyes, letting go, tears springing out to leak down his cheeks as the familiar motion continued, letting himself be rocked slowly from side to side.

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**A/N: Just a short little drabble that I was thinking about while listening to the song Ezio's Family on YouTube. Poor man...he went through so much to try and avenge his family, it is hard not to feel his pain and feel sympathy for him. :(**


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